Aftershocks will continue for six more months in the Andamans

A month after the high-intensity earthquake off the coast of Sumatra causing tsunami that killed thousands, the Katchall island today recorded another earthquake of 6.3 intensity on the Richter scale. This, according to R.K. Chadha, scientist at the Hyderabad-based National Geophysical Research Institute, is an aftershock. According to the Indian Meteorological Department, it is the 27th aftershock in the Andaman region with an intensity of six and above.

Aftershocks of reducing intensity can be expected to rattle the Andaman and Nicobar islands as they fall in the subduction zone. [A subduction zone is the place where one plate dives below another. In this case, the India plate dived below the Burma microplate. The trench is the surface expression of this phenomenon. The subduction zone in this case is nearly 100 km in width and stretches from Sumatra to the Andaman group of islands].